The First Prayer of His Life Brought a Miracle

A powerful story has been circulating on social media, leaving a strong impression on all who read it. It tells of a moment that turned despair into a miracle and how even one heartfelt prayer can reach the Heavens.

An observant Jewish family went on vacation to Tiberias. While the father went to pray at the kever (grave) of Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess, a great tzaddik (righteous man) known for miraculous salvations, the mother and two daughters went down to the Sea of Galilee. Suddenly, the older daughter, who didn't know how to swim, slipped and was swept into deeper waters.

The mother stood helpless on the shore, watching her daughter struggle and sink. She didn’t know how to swim. In a panic, she ran to the road, frantically waving down cars for help. But every car passed by. Some honked, others yelled at her to move. No one stopped.

At last, one driver pulled over. A well-dressed man got out and asked what had happened. “My daughter is drowning!” the mother screamed, pointing toward the sea. Just then, his wife shouted after him, “Don’t forget you’re recovering from a heart attack!”

Still, without hesitation, he removed his coat and ran toward the water. He dove in and pulled a small girl out—but it was the younger daughter, who had apparently jumped in to save her sister. “There’s another child in there!” the mother cried. “There, over there!”

The man turned and dove in again. People on the shore began yelling, “Her head is in the water! Get her head up!” He found her, lifted her head onto his shoulder, and swam her back to land.

Someone on shore began performing CPR, and soon Magen David Adom paramedics arrived. But it was too late. The paramedics checked for a pulse and gently told the mother there was nothing they could do. Her daughter had been under too long without oxygen. Still, they rushed her to the hospital.

There too, the doctors repeated the same message: “We’re sorry. It’s too late.”

And that’s when the family turned to Hashem and began praying with all their hearts. Hours later, something unbelievable happened. A doctor walked in, astonished, and said, “I can’t believe it. Brain activity has returned to normal. The girl has woken up.”

Within two days, she had fully recovered and was released from the hospital. The doctors could only say, “This is a medical miracle.” It was extremely rare. The girl had been underwater for a dangerously long time, yet here she was, alive and well.

The family held a seudat hoda’ah (a special meal thanking Hashem) and wanted to invite the brave man who had saved their daughter. After searching, they found him: a lawyer living on a kibbutz, completely secular and not connected to Judaism. Then they heard his side of the story.

“At the time of the incident,” he told them, “I was still recovering from a heart attack. I was driving north for a vacation with my wife. When we saw the woman desperately signaling on the road, my wife begged me not to stop. But I just couldn’t keep driving. Something told me I had to help.”

He added that years ago, he had been an Olympic-level swimmer. And, remarkably, as part of his heart recovery program, he had just returned to swimming exactly one week before this incident. “If not for that week of swimming, I don’t think I could have saved your daughter,” he said.

He recounted how he rescued the first girl, and then the second. But when he realized he hadn’t lifted the second girl's head above water, he was crushed. “I killed her,” he sobbed to his wife at home. “I made a mistake. She could’ve lived.”

His wife tried to comfort him. “You saved her,” she said. “You risked your own life for her.” But he couldn’t forgive himself.

So he returned to the scene. He climbed a nearby mountain, looked up to the sky, and began to pray, something he had never done in his life.

“Master of the Universe,” he said. “I’ve never prayed before. I grew up on a kibbutz where prayer was mocked. I always felt embarrassed by the idea of talking to You. But now… I beg You. Consider this prayer as if it were all the prayers I would have said my whole life. Use it, please, to save that girl.”

That was his first tefillah (prayer). And when he returned home and called the hospital, he was told the girl had woken up exactly at the time he was standing on the mountain, praying.

Now pause for a moment and think. Was his greatest act the bravery to jump into the water? Or maybe the second dive to save another child? Or perhaps... it was when he took his heartbreak, his regret, and instead of letting it drown him in guilt, he turned it into his very first prayer. And that prayer brought a miracle.

All of us have moments when we feel like we’ve failed. But it’s those exact moments, if we use them to reach upward and to speak to Hashem that can bring salvation. The gates of prayer are always open, especially when they come from the heart.

Let your broken moment become your turning point.

Let your first prayer… be the one that opens the Heavens.